Holidays at Crescent Cove by Shelley Noble Read Free Book Online

guy?”
    â€œDidn’t Nick tell you?”
    â€œNick didn’t know. Just said the two of you were estranged.”
    Margaux hadn’t told Nick, Grace realized. Margaux knew it was something she didn’t want known, and hadn’t even told her husband. The true measure of a friend.
    She looked at Jake. Was she ready to talk about it? Was Jake the person to tell her side of the story to? Would getting it out in the open finally lay it to rest? And she realized the answer was yes.
    â€œWell, here’s what happened . . .”
    Strangely enough it only took a few minutes to tell from first meeting Sonny Cavanaugh until the current case. And yet it had colored her whole life for the past four years. “It doesn’t sound like much now, but . . .” She shrugged, not knowing how to say it.
    â€œYou feel responsible.”
    â€œWell, yeah, how did you know?”
    â€œBecause I know you.”
    She gave him an incredulous look.
    â€œI mean you just seem like you always want to do what’s right.”
    Grace smiled, a little sadly. “When Margaux and Bri and I were growing up, we had this secret hideout.”
    â€œI know. I’ve been there.”
    â€œYou have?”
    â€œConnor showed me. He said it was a place that made wishes come true.”
    â€œWhat a sweetie. It’s more like it’s where we dreamed of what we would be when we grew up.”
    â€œYou wanted to save the world from the bad guys.”
    â€œHow did you guess?”
    â€œYou always rode the white horse.”
    He remembered that? “I was pretty naïve.”
    â€œYou were cute.”
    Her phone buzzed again. She growled at it.
    Jake stood. “Come on, let’s get out of here. And maybe we can outrun that noise.”
    He helped her on with her coat and guided her out the door, where his arm slipped around her, naturally, like it had never left. They walked back toward her apartment and Grace began to wonder what was going to happen next.
    Halfway up the block Jake stopped, turned her around and pulled her up into a kiss.
    She had been expecting it and not expecting it, and now that she was here, she relaxed into it, let the kiss pour over her, warming her like the cognac had before.
    It ended as quickly as it had begun and as seamlessly, and they were walking down the street toward her apartment. Her apartment . Grace took a deep breath.
    They had almost reached her building when a man stepped out of the shadows. Jake automatically pushed Grace behind him.
    She grabbed at the back of his coat. “Careful.”
    What was going on? Crescent Cove was a safe town. She peered around Jake’s arm and her heart stuttered to a stop, then banged, stuttered, and began to race.
    She wasn’t afraid, just taken off guard, and incredibly defeated. On top of everything else, he had come to wreck her personal life. She stepped out from behind Jake.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?”
    â€œI tried to call.”
    Yeah, but it must have been her mother calling a few minutes before. He would never been able to make it to Crescent Cove from Hartford in that time. She should have answered the phone like Jake had suggested. Her mother must have been trying to warn her. So why hadn’t she left a message? Because she probably guessed that Grace would erase it without listening.
    Damn and double damn.
    â€œI don’t know why you’re here, to ask advice or to humiliate me. But I’m not interested in either, so you can turn around and go home. I’ll phone mother and tell her you’re on your way—so she won’t worry.”
    â€œGrace—”
    â€œGo.” Grace practically ran past him. She was too enraged and heartsick to manage more. And she couldn’t imagine what Jake must be thinking. He would probably despise her, too. Well, to hell with them all.
    At this point Grace didn’t even care. She just wanted to be alone, to drown